The Weekly Spill #24
gaga, gatsby, and the fear of gay sailors
Happy Memorial Day Weekend! We’ve finally reached Summer. If you are the type of person who feels the urge to correct me right now by saying, “technically Summer doesn’t start until Ju—” maybe this isn’t the newsletter for you. Don’t ruin the good vibes. Don’t be a vibe-ruiner. Summer can be whenever you want it to be. Okay? Cool. Now, let’s get into the things on my mind this week. Spill the titular beans if you will. I know you divas are all very busy with exciting plans, so I tried to keep it somewhat brief.
Fleet Week: Ahoy! It’s fleet week! This doesn’t really have to do with anything, but it’s an excuse to watch these videos. You should also probably watch Sex and the City Season 5, Episode 1. You know… to support the sailors. During this week, watching these videos and Sex and the City is actually an act of patriotism.
Fun fact: the Navy passed a ban on filming music videos on their ships after this because they claimed that Cher’s outfit was too sexy and made a mockery of the USS Missouri. The sailors in the video look like they are having fun though.
Second fun fact: The Navy got really mad about this music video, too! They apparently didn’t know that there was anything gay about the Village People (similar to some current politicians). The original plan was to make “In The Navy” their new official theme song and to start using it in all recruitment commercials. Apparently once the backlash started, Navy officials worried that the song would encourage sailors to have gay sex on board the ships. So, they disavowed the song and video; and stuck with “Anchors Away.” The Navy currently claims that they had nothing to do with the video, nor do they have any record of the Village People being on this ship.
I don’t have a fun fact about On The Town, I’m sorry.
Missing Madonna: Last weekend I won the Broadway ticket lottery for the second-to-last performance of Lempicka. I was feeling lazy, so I decided not to buy the tickets. Oh well, I thought. Diva… I thought wrong because a few days later I saw that Madonna was in the audience that night. So, I not only missed out on seeing Lempicka; I missed out on seeing Lempicka with Madonna. This will haunt me for years, I fear.
Cannes fashion part deux: as promised, here are some of my favorite looks from the second half of the Cannes Film Festival.
The Great Gatsby on Broadway: I saw The Great Gatsby this week and I have… thoughts. Y’all, this show is not good. First, I want to say that the cast is great; this is not their fault. Jeremy Jordan could sing the phone book, and I would be seated. They all deserve a better show. Obviously, Gatsby is a hard book to adapt. My concern is that I’m not sure the creators of this show even read the book. If they did, they certainly didn’t understand it. Then, they took their already limited understanding of the source material and dumbed it down for audiences who they clearly worry are idiots. Yes, all of the quintessential Gatsby things are there (his yellow car, the parties, the beautiful shirts, the famous lines that everyone can quote, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, etc.), but the meaning behind them is either erased or strangely misinterpreted. They are banging you over the head with every one of Fitzgerald’s subtleties. It’s as if they are screaming at you: “LOOK! IT’S THE CAR! REMEMBER THE YELLOW CAR? SEE IT? IT’S GATSBY’S CAR… YOU KNOW, FROM THE BOOK!!”
All of George Wilson’s songs are sung directly to the T.J. Eckleburg billboard, and I rolled my eyes every single time. He also tells the billboard, in song, that it is like the eyes of god. So any subtext is just made text — dramatically sung text. All of the characters have been scrubbed up and made to be likable. Daisy Buchanan’s famously flippant wish for her daughter to be a fool is turned into a wannabe feminist anthem at the end of the show. The Great Gatsby fails as soon as you are afraid to have the characters be bad people. That is the entire point of the novel, and I don’t think it’s impossible to tell a great story about terrible people on stage. Chicago, the longest show currently running on Broadway, is the perfect example. Every character in Chicago is a terrible person who is doing terrible things, yet that show works. So… yeah I can’t say I recommend this version of The Great Gatsby. Will I go see the dueling adaptation with music by Florence Welch when it comes to Broadway? Yes. Duh.
Lady Gaga’s Met Gala look: I love that she posted what she would have worn as if was sent home early on Drag Race. I hope she gets to come back for Met Gala All Stars.
That’s it for this week! I hope everyone has a fabulous long weekend. I will be celebrating by participating in one of the longest held American traditions: shopping the MDW sales. Capitalism, baby! If you are in New York, keep an eye out for those sailors. If you’ve got sailor FOMO, you can watch Cher dance around that boat and buy this shirt. It’s on sale, and I bought it. We can match. That would be so cute. Okay, bye!!